In the first half of the first millennium, Kashmir became an
important center of Hinduism and later of
Buddhism; later still, in the ninth
century, Kashmir Shaivism arose in
the region. In 1349, Shah Mir became the first Muslim ruler of Kashmir and inaugurated the line
Salatin-i-Kashmir. Imperial Gazetteer of India, volume
15. 1908. Oxford University Press, Oxford and London. pp.
93-95. For the next five centuries Kashmir had Muslim
monarchs, including the Mughals, who ruled
until 1751, and thereafter, the Afghan Durranis, who ruled until
1820. That year, the Sikhs under Ranjit
Singh, annexed Kashmir. In 1846, upon the purchase of the
region from the British under the Treaty of Amritsar, the
Dogras—under Gulab Singh—became the new
rulers. Dogra Rule, under the
paramountcy (or tutelage) of the British Crown, lasted
until 1947, when the former princely state
became a disputed territory, now
administered by three countries: India, Pakistan, and the
People's
Republic of China.

Etymology

The Nilamata Purana describes the
Valley's origin from the waters, Ka means "water" and
Shimir means "to desiccate".
Hence, Kaashmir stands for "a land desiccated from water." There is
also a theory which takes Kaashmir to be a contraction of
Kashyap-mira or Kashyapmir or
Kashyapmeru, the "sea or mountain of Kashyapa", the sage who is credited with having
drained the waters of the primordial lake Satisar, that
Kaashmir was before it was reclaimed. The Nilamata Purana gives the name Kaashmira to the
Valley considering it to be an embodiment of Uma
and it is the Kaashmir that the world knows today. The Kaashmiris,
however, call it Kashir, which has been derived
phonetically from Kaashmir, as pointed out by Aurel Stein
in his introduction to the Rajatarangini.

In the Rajatarangini, a history of Kashmir written by
Kalhana in the 12th century, it is
stated that the valley of Kaashmir was formerly a lake. This was
drained by the great rishi or sage, Kashyapa, son of Marichi, son of Brahma, by cutting the gap in the hills at Baramulla
(Varaha-mula). Cashmere is a
variant spelling of Kaashmir.

Adi Shankara visited the pre-existing
(Sharada Peeth) in Kashmir in late 8th
century CE or early 9th Century CE. The Madhaviya
Shankaravijayam states this temple had
four doors for scholars from the four cardinal directions. The
southern door (representing South India)
had never been opened, indicating that no scholar from South India
had entered the Sarvajna Pitha. Adi Shankara opened the southern
door by defeating in debate all the scholars there in all the
various scholastic disciplines such as Mimamsa, Vedanta and other
branches of Hindu philosophy; he
ascended the throne of Transcendent wisdom of that temple.

He was
born in the Valley of
Kashmir in a family of scholars and mystics and studied all
the schools of philosophy and art of his time under the guidance of
as many as fifteen (or more) teachers and gurus. In his long life he completed over 35
works, the largest and most famous of which is Tantrāloka, an encyclopedic treatise on all the
philosophical and practical aspects of Trika
and Kaula (known today as Kashmir Shaivism). Another one of his very
important contributions was in the field of philosophy of
aesthetics with his famous Abhinavabhāratī commentary of Nāṭyaśāstra of Bharata
Muni.

Muslim rule

Gateway of enclosure, (once a
Hindu temple) of Zein-ul-ab-ud-din's Tomb, in Srinagar.

Probable date A.D.

400 to 500, 1868.

John Burke.

Oriental and India Office Collection.

British Library.

The Muslims and Hindus of Kashmir lived in
relative harmony, since the Sufi-Islamic way of
life that Muslims followed in Kashmir complemented the Rishi tradition of Kashmiri
Pandits. This led to a syncretic culture where Hindus and
Muslims revered the same local saints and prayed at the same
shrines . Famous sufi saint Bulbul Shah was able to
convert Rinchan Shah who was then prince of
Kashgar Ladakh to an
Islamic lifestyle, thus founding the Sufiana composite
culture. Under this rule, Muslim, Hindu
and Buddhist Kashmiris generally co-existed
peacefully. Over time, however, the Sufiana governance gave way to
outright Muslim monarchs.

Some Kashmiri rulers, such as Sultan Zain-ul-Abidin(r.1423-1474), were tolerant of
all religions in a manner comparable to Akbar.
However, several Muslim rulers of Kashmir were intolerant of other
religions. Sultãn Sikandar
Butshikan of Kashmir (AD 1389-1413) is often considered the
worst of these. Historians have recorded many of his atrocities.
The Tarikh-i-Firishta records that
Sikandar persecuted the Hindus and issued orders proscribing the residence of
any other than Muslims in Kashmir. He also ordered the breaking of
all "golden and silver images". The Tarikh-i-Firishta further
states: "Many of the Brahmins, rather than
abandon their religion or their country, poisoned themselves; some
emigrated from their native homes, while a few escaped. After the
emigration of the Brahmins, Sikandar ordered all the temples in
Kashmir to be thrown down. Having broken all the images in Kashmir,
(Sikandar) acquired the title of ‘Destroyer of Idols’."

The metrical chronicle of the kings of Kashmir, called Rajatarangini, has been pronounced by
Professor H.H.Wilson to be the only Sanskrit composition yet discovered to which the
appellation "history" can with any propriety be applied. It first
became known to the Muslims when, on Akbar's
invasion of Kashmir in 1588, a copy was presented to the emperor. A
translation into Persian was made at his order. A summary of its
contents, taken from this Persian translation, is given by Abul Fazl in the
Ain-i-Akbari. The Rajatarangini was written by
Kalhana about the middle of the 12th century. His work, in six
books, makes use of earlier writings that are now lost.

The Rajatarangini is the first of a series of four
histories that record the annals of Kashmir. Commencing with a
rendition of traditional history of very early times, the
Rajatarangini comes down to the reign of Sangrama Deva, (c.1006 AD). The
second work, by Jonaraja, continues the
history from where Kalhana left off, and, entering the Muslim
period, gives an account of the reigns down to that of Zain-ul-ab-ad-din, 1412. P. Srivara
carried on the record to the accession of Fah
Shah in 1486. The fourth work, called Rajavalipataka,
by Prajnia Bhatta, completes the
history to the time of the incorporation of Kashmir in the
dominions of the Mogul emperor Akbar,
1588.

Sikh rule and Princely State

By the
early 19th century, the Kashmir valley had passed from the control
of the Durrani Empire of Afghanistan, and four centuries of Muslim
rule under the Mughals and the Afghans, to the conquering
Sikh armies.Earlier, in 1780,
after the death of Ranjit Deo, the Raja of
Jammu, the kingdom of Jammu (to the south of
the Kashmir valley) was captured by the Sikhs under Ranjit
Singh of Lahore and
afterwards, until 1846, became a tributary to the Sikh power.
Imperial Gazetteer of India, volume 15. 1908. "Kashmir:
History." pp. 94-95. Ranjit Deo's grandnephew, Gulab Singh, subsequently sought service at the
court of Ranjit Singh, distinguished
himself in later campaigns, especially the annexation of the
Kashmir valley by the Sikhs army in 1819, and,
for his services, was appointed governor of Jammu in 1820.
With the
help of his officer, Zorawar
Singh, Gulab Singh soon captured Ladakh and Baltistan, regions to the east and north-east of
Jammu.

The Princely State of Kashmir and Jammu (as it was then
called) was constituted between 1820 and 1858 and was "somewhat
artificial in composition and it did not develop a fullycoherent
identity, partly as a result of its disparate origins and partly as
a result of theautocratic rule which it experienced on the fringes
of Empire." It combined disparate regions, religions,
and ethnicities: to the east, Ladakh was
ethnically and culturally Tibetan and
its inhabitants practised Buddhism; to the south, Jammu had a mixed
population of Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs; in the heavily populated
central Kashmir valley, the population was overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim, however, there was also a
small but influential Hindu minority, the
Kashmiri brahmins or pandits; to the northeast, sparsely
populated Baltistan had a population
ethnically related to Ladakh, but which practised Shi'a Islam; to the north, also sparsely
populated, Gilgit Agency, was an area
of diverse, mostly Shi'a groups; and, to the west,
Punch was Muslim, but of different
ethnicity than the Kashmir valley. After the Indian Rebellion of 1857, in which
Kashmir sided with the British, and the subsequent assumption of
direct rule by Great Britain, the
princely state of Kashmir came under
the suzerainty of the British Crown.

Year 1947 and 1948

The prevailing religions by district in the 1901 Census of the
Indian Empire.

Ranbir Singh's grandson Hari Singh, who
had ascended the throne of Kashmir in 1925, was the reigning
monarch in 1947 at the conclusion of British rule of the
subcontinent and the subsequent partition of the British Indian Empire into the newly independent
Union of India and the Dominion of Pakistan. As parties to the
partition process, both countries had agreed that the rulers of
princely states would be given the right to opt for either Pakistan
or India or—in special cases—to remain independent. In 1947,
Kashmir's population "was 77 per cent Muslim and it shared a
boundary with Pakistan. Hence, it was anticipated that the Maharaja
would accede to Pakistan, when the British paramountcy ended on
14-15 August. When he hesitated to do this, Pakistan launched a
guerilla onslaught meant to frighten its ruler into submission.
Instead the Maharaja appealed to Mountbatten
for assistance, and the Governor-General agreed on the
condition that the ruler accede to India." Once the Maharaja signed
the Instrument of
Accession, "Indian soldiers entered Kashmir and drove the
Pakistani-sponsored irregulars from all but a small section of the
state. The United Nations was then
invited to mediate the quarrel. The UN mission insisted that the
opinion of Kashmiris must be ascertained, while India insisted that
no referendum could occur until all of the state had been cleared
of irregulars."

In the last days of 1948, a ceasefire was agreed under UN auspices;
however, since the plebiscite demanded by
the UN was never conducted, relations between India and Pakistan
soured, and eventually led to two more wars over Kashmir in
1965 and 1999. India has control of about half the area of
the former princely state of Jammu and Kashmir; Pakistan controls a
third of the region, the Northern Areas and Azad
Kashmir. According to Encyclopaedia Britannica,
"Although there was a clear Muslim majority in Kashmir before the
1947 partition and its economic, cultural, and geographic
contiguity with the Muslim-majority area of the Punjab (in
Pakistan) could be convincingly demonstrated, the political
developments during and after the partition resulted in a division
of the region. Pakistan was left with territory that, although
basically Muslim in character, was thinly populated, relatively
inaccessible, and economically underdeveloped. The largest Muslim
group, situated in the Vale of Kashmir and estimated to number more
than half the population of the entire region, lay in
Indian-administered territory, with its former outlets via the
Jhelum valley route blocked."

The UN Security Council on 20 January 1948 passed Resolution 39,
establishing a special commission to investigate the conflict.
Subsequent to the commission's recommendation, the Security Council
ordered in its Resolution 47,
passed on 21 April 1948, that the invading Pakistani army retreat
from Jammu & Kashmir and that the accession of Kashmir to
either India or Pakistan be determined in accordance with a
plebiscite to be supervised by the UN.

Post-1948 developments

The eastern region of the erstwhile princely state of Kashmir has
also been beset with a boundary dispute. In the late 19th- and
early 20th centuries, although some boundary agreements were signed
between Great Britain, Afghanistan and Russia over the northern
borders of Kashmir, China never accepted these agreements, and the
official Chinese position did not change with the communist takeover in 1949. By the mid-1950s the
Chinese army had entered the north-east
portion of Ladakh.Kashmir. (2007). In Encyclopædia Britannica.
Retrieved March 27, 2007, from Encyclopædia Britannica Online.

"By
1956–57 they had completed a military road through the Aksai Chin area to provide better communication between
Xinjiang and western Tibet. India's belated discovery of this road
led to border clashes between the two countries that culminated in
the Sino-Indian war of October
1962."

China has occupied
Aksai
Chin since the early 1950s and, in addition, an
adjoining region almost 8% of the territory, the Trans-Karakoram Tract was ceded by
Pakistan to China in 1963.

Meanwhile, elections were held in Indian Jammu & Kashmir, which
brought up the popular Muslim leader Sheikh Abdullah, who with his party National Conference,
by and large supported India. The elected Constituent
Assembly met for the first time in Srinagar on October 31, 1951. Then The State
Constituent Assembly ratified the accession of the State to the
Union of India on February 6, 1954 and the President of India
subsequently issued the Constitution (Application to J&K) Order
under Article 370 of the Indian Constitution extending the Union
Constitution to the State with some exceptions and modifications.
The State’s own Constitution came into force on January 26, 1957
under which the elections to the State Legislative Assembly were
held for the first time on the basis of adult franchise the same
year. This Constitution further reiterated the ratification of the
State’s accession to Union of India. However, these tidings were
not recognized by Pakistan, which has continued to press for a
plebiscite to ascertain the wishes of the people. Pakistan set up its
own Kashmir, called Azad
Kashmir in a tiny Western chunk that it controls.
The much larger region of Pakistani Kashmir in the North-West,
which was a province named Northern Areas in the erstwhile
state, by and large bore no mention in Pakistani laws and
Constitution as being of any status, until in 1982 the Pakistani
President General Zia ul Haq proclaimed
that the people of the Northern Areas were Pakistanis and had
nothing to do with the State of Jammu and Kashmir.

The
Gilgit-Baltistan, formerly called Northern Areas, are a
group of territories in the extreme north, bordered by the Karakoram, the western Himalayas, the Pamir, and the
Hindu
Kush ranges.With its administrative center at the town
of Gilgit, the
Northern
Areas cover an area of 72,971 km² (28,174 mi²)
and have an estimated population approaching 1,000,000.The other
main city is Skardu.

Ladakh is a region
in the east, between the Kunlun mountain range in the north and the main Great
Himalayas to the south.Main cities are
Leh and Kargil.It is
under Indian administration and is part of the state of Jammu and
Kashmir. It is one of the most sparsely populated
regions in the area and is mainly inhabited by people of Indo-Aryan and Tibetan descent.

Aksai Chin is a vast high-altitude desert of salt that reaches
altitudes up to .Geographically part of the Tibetan
Plateau, Aksai Chin is referred to as the Soda
Plain. The region is almost uninhabited, and has no
permanent settlements.

Though these regions are in practice administered by their
respective claimants, neither India nor Pakistan has formally
recognised the accession of the areas claimed by the other. India
claims those areas, including the area "ceded" to China by Pakistan
in the Trans-Karakoram Tract
in 1963, are a part of its territory, while Pakistan claims the
entire region excluding Aksai Chin and Trans-Karakoram Tract. The
two countries have fought several declared wars over the territory.
The Indo-Pakistani War of
1947 established the rough boundaries of today, with Pakistan
holding roughly one-third of Kashmir, and India one-half, with a
dividing line of control established by the United Nations. The
Indo-Pakistani War of
1965 resulted in a stalemate and a UN-negotiated
ceasefire.

Kashmir valley

The
Kashmir valley or Vale of Kashmir
is a valley between Himalayas and the Pir Panjal Range.It is around 135 km long and 32 km
wide, formed by the Jhelum
River. It was called as "Paradise on Earth" by
Jahangir. Currently it has population of
around 4 million, mostly Muslim.

Demographics

In the 1901 Census of the British Indian Empire, Muslims
constituted 74.16% of the total population of the princely state of
Kashmir and Jammu, Hindus, 23.72%,
and Buddhists, 1.21%. The Hindus were found mainly in Jammu, where they constituted a little less than 80%
of the population. In the Kashmir Valley, Muslims constituted 93.6%
of the population and Hindus 5.24%. These percentages have remained
fairly stable for the last 100 years. Forty years later, in the
1941 Census of British India, Muslims accounted for 93.6% of the
population of the Kashmir Valley and the Hindus for 4%. In 2003,
the percentage of Muslims in the Kashmir Valley was 95% and those
of Hindus 4%; the same year, in Jammu, the percentage of Hindus
was 66% and those of Muslims 30%.In the 1901 Census of the British
Indian Empire, the population of the
princely state of Kashmir and
Jammu was 2,905,578. Of these 2,154,695
were Muslims (74.16%), 689,073Hindus
(23.72%), 25,828 Sikhs, and 35,047 Buddhists.

A Muslim shawl making family shown in
Cashmere shawl manufactory, 1867, chromolith., William
Simpson.

Among the Muslims of the princely state, four divisions were
recorded: "Shaikhs, Saiyids, Mughals, and Pathans. The Shaikhs, who
are by far the most numerous, are the descendants of Hindus, but have retained none of the caste rules of
their forefathers. They have clan names known as krams
..." It was recorded that these kram names included
"Tantre," "Shaikh,", "Bhat", "Mantu," "Ganai," "Dar," "Damar,"
"Lon" etc. The Saiyids,
it was recorded "could be divided into those who follow the
profession of religion and those who have taken to agriculture and
other pursuits. Their kram name is "Mir." While a Saiyid
retains his saintly profession Mir is a prefix; if he has taken to
agriculture, Mir is an affix to his name." The Mughals who
were not numerous were recorded to have kram names like
"Mir" (a corruption of "Mirza"), "Beg," "Bandi," "Bach," and
"Ashaye." Finally, it was recorded that the Pathans "who are more
numerous than the Mughals, ... are found chiefly in the south-west
of the valley, where Pathan colonies have
from time to time been founded. The most interesting of these
colonies is that of Kuki-Khel Afridis at Dranghaihama, who retain
all the old customs and speak Pashtu."

The Hindus were found mainly in Jammu, where they constituted a little less than 80%
of the population. In the Kashmir Valley, the Hindus
represented "524 in every 10,000 of the population (i.e.
5.24%), and in the frontier wazarats of Ladhakh and Gilgit
only 94 out of every 10,000 persons (0.94%)." In the same Census of
1901, in the Kashmir Valley, the total population was recorded to
be 1,157,394, of which the Muslim population was 1,083,766, or
93.6% and the Hindu population 60,641. Among
the Hindus of Jammu province, who
numbered 626,177 (or 90.87% of the Hindu population of the princely
state), the most important castes recorded in the census were
"Brahmans (186,000), the Rajputs (167,000), the Khattris (48,000) and the Thakkars (93,000)."

In the 1911 Census of the British Indian Empire, the total
population of Kashmir and Jammu had increased to
3,158,126. Of these, 2,398,320 (75.94%) were Muslims, 696,830
(22.06%) Hindus, 31,658 (1%) Sikhs, and 36,512 (1.16%) Buddhists. In the last census of British India in
1941, the total population of Kashmir and Jammu (which as a result
of the second world war, was estimated from the 1931 census) was
3,945,000. Of these, the total Muslim population was 2,997,000
(75.97%), the Hindu population was 808,000 (20.48%), and the Sikh
55,000 (1.39%).

According to political scientist Alexander Evans, approximately 95%
of the total population of 160,000-170,000 of Kashmir Brahmins, also called Kashmiri Pandits, (i.e.
approximately 150,000 to 160,000) left the Kashmir Valley in 1990
"as militant violence engulfed the state". According to the CIA
Factbook chapter on India, approximately 300,000 Kashmiri Pandits
from the state of Jammu and Kashmir are internally displaced.

Alcohol and Beef are not widely consumed in Kashmir. There are two
styles of making tea in the region: nun chai, or salt tea, which is
pink in colour and popular with locals; and kahwah, a tea for festive occasions, made with
saffron and spices.

Economy

Kashmir's economy is centred around agriculture. Traditionally the
staple crop of the valley was rice, which formed the chief food of
the people. In addition, Indian corn, wheat, barley and oats were
also grown. Given its temperate climate, it is suited for crops
like asparagus, artichoke, seakale, broad
beans, scarletrunners, beetroot, cauliflower and cabbage. Fruit
trees are common in the valley, and the cultivated orchards yield
pears, apples, peaches,
and cherries. The chief trees are deodar, firs and pines, chenar or plane,
maple, birch and walnut, apple,
cherry.

Historically, Kashmir became known worldwide when Cashmere wool was exported to other regions
and nations (exports have ceased due to decreased abundance of the
cashmere goat and increased competition from China). Kashmiris are
well adept at knitting and making Pashminashawls, silk
carpets, rugs, kurtas, and pottery. Saffron, too, is grown in Kashmir. Efforts are on to
export the naturally grown fruits and vegetables as organic foods mainly to the Middle East. Srinagar is known for its
silver-work, papier mache,
wood-carving, and the weaving of silk.

The economy was badly damaged by the 2005 Kashmir earthquake which, as of
October 8, 2005, resulted in over 70,000 deaths in the
Pakistan-controlled part of Kashmir and around 1,500 deaths in
Indian controlled Kashmir.

History of Tourism in Kashmir

During the 19th century rule, Kashmir was a popular tourist
destination due to its climate. Only 200 passes a year were issued
by the government. European sportsmen and travellers, in addition
to residents of India, traveled there freely. The railway to
Rawalpindi, and a road thence to Srinagar made access to the valley easier.When the
temperature in Srinagar rose at the beginning of June, the
residents migrated to Gulmarg, which was a fashionable hill station during
British rule. This great influx
of visitors resulted in a corresponding diminution of game for the
sportsmen. Special game preservation rules were introduced, and
nullahs were let out for stated periods with a restriction
on the number of head to be shot. Rawalakot was another popular destination.

Hussain, Ijaz. 1998. "Kashmir Dispute: An International Law
Perspective", National Institute of Pakistan Studies.

Irfani, Suroosh, ed "Fifty Years of the Kashmir Dispute": Based
on the proceedings of the International Seminar held at
Muzaffarabad, Azad Jammu and Kashmir August 24-25, 1997: University
of Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Muzaffarabad, AJK, 1997.

Joshi, Manoj Lost Rebellion: Kashmir
in the Nineties (Penguin, New Delhi, 1999).

Moorcroft, William
and Trebeck, George. 1841.
Travels in the Himalayan Provinces of Hindustan and the Panjab;
in Ladakh and Kashmir, in Peshawar, Kabul, Kunduz, and Bokhara...
from 1819 to 1825, Vol. II. Reprint: New Delhi, Sagar
Publications, 1971.

Neve, Arthur. (Date unknown). The Tourist's Guide to
Kashmir, Ladakh, Skardo &c. 18th Edition. Civil and
Military Gazette, Ltd., Lahore. (The date of this edition is
unknown - but the 16th edition was published in 1938).

Norelli-Bachelet, Patrizia. "Kashmir and the Convergence of
Time, Space and Destiny", 2004; ISBN 0-945747-00-4. First published
as a four-part series, March 2002 - April 2003, in 'Prakash', a
review of the Jagat Guru Bhagavaan Gopinath Ji Charitable
Foundation. [2458]